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Eli Erlick stands in a stairwell at the Capitol building in Sacramento, California, on April 17, 2013 after testifying before an education committee. Erlick, who is transgender, helped to lobby for state law that guaranteed trans students could use the bathroom and play on the sports team matching their gender identities, but some states are proposing laws that would bar such a practice.
Rich Pedroncelli / AP

Eli Erlick stands in a stairwell at the Capitol building in Sacramento, California, on April 17, 2013 after testifying before an education committee. Erlick, who is transgender, helped to lobby for state law that guaranteed trans students could use the bathroom and play on the sports team matching their gender identities, but some states are proposing laws that would bar such a practice.
Rich Pedroncelli / AP

The growing trend of transgender ‘bathroom bully’ bills

Nevada, Florida, Texas and others have proposed bills that would bar trans kids from using certain school bathrooms

When Eli Erlick was 8 years old, she would sometimes pretend to be sick, just so she could leave school and go home to use the bathroom. She had asked to use the girls’ bathroom at her school in Mendocino County, California, but she wasn’t allowed to.

“I had no idea why I couldn’t do this,” Erlick said. “I didn’t even know the word ‘transgender.’ I just knew that I was a girl,” she said, and so it didn’t feel right to use the boys’ bathroom. This continued until she was 13, when she began her gender transition.

After that landmark legislation in California, some states are pushing in the other direction, and bathrooms and locker rooms are starting to become key battlegrounds in the nationwide fight for the rights of transgender children.

“My story isn’t uncommon at all,” Erlick said. “There are thousands of trans youth who are being denied these resources every day.”

These proposed laws do offer some compromises: The Minnesota bill says schools would be required to provide “places of public accommodation on thegroundsof gender identity or expression.” But advocates say that these laws area clear signal that transgender children are not welcome in common spaces. Opponents of the Kentucky legislation call it the“bathroom bully” bill because they say it would open the door for children to judge each other based on perceived gender identity.

Other recent laws go even further. Lawmakers in Florida proposed a bill in February that applies to any sex-segregated public facility, not just in public schools, and calls for a $1,000 fine for violators and a potential prison term of up to a year. A bill introduced in the Texas legislature in February would bar someone from entering a locker room or bathroom meant for women if that person has a Y chromosome. Violating the law would be a felony, and attendants who repeatedly allow trans people to enter could be charged with a felony and do jail time, according to the bill’s text.

“It’s a second bite of the apple for lawmakers who are not happy that their states or entities within their states had moved to protect students,” said Michael Silverman, executive director of the New York City-based Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund.

If these proposed bathroom bills do get signed into law, they are likely to face legal challenges. Gender identity and expression is included in Title IX of the Education Amendments Act, a 1972 law that protects all public school students from gender discrimination. “The Departments of Justice and Education have made it clear that they intend to protect transgender students from unequal treatment in school,” Silverman said.

“Transgender people are probably 20 years behind lesbian and gay people in terms of public understanding of who they are and public acceptance,” Silverman said. “That makes the transgender community an easy scapegoat now for people who no longer target the gay and lesbian community because it won’t be tolerated. We need to create the conditions where legislators know that they cannot target transgender people either.”